Category: The Ball

As the few of you have been paying attention will have noted, Mungo McCrackas found love in last week’s “Shit Shot Mungo”. With a crown, a cigar and a new facial tattoo, though, he’s back in the teamfor this week’s episode of the cartoon.

The story of the winding down of Chester City has been gathering pace all day. The club’s expulsion from the Football Conference now seems close to inevitable after it was confirmed that their match against Wrexham this Sunday was cancelled after a prohibition notice was served on the club by Chester Trading Standards office.

A situation that had long been beyond being a farce finally looks like entering its end game this evening after Chester City failed to fulfil their Blue Square Premier fixture against Forest Green Rovers.

As football sinks further and further into the financial mire, the official statements made by clubs themselves are becoming more and more odd, and more and more telling. Mark Murphy has been looking at some of these statements, and is less than convinced by them.

A Blackburn Rovers supporter died at the weekend after an incident that looks increasingly as if it was horseplay gone wrong. This, however, doesn’t mean that there hasn’t been an increasingly deteriorating atmosphere at Blackburn away matches this season.

With the scent of Wembley just starting to become apparent, there was a long trip south this weekend for Marske United of the Northern League. Still, with the sea visible on the horizon, at least they might have felt at home at the foot of the South Downs.

Tick, tock, tick tock. There are eighteen days left for Notts County to find the money to stave off a winding up order brought against them by HMRC, and whether this is close or not depends on who you listen to.

“In the future”, said Andy Warhol in 1968, “everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes”.﻿ It is tempting to look at Portsmouth’s ownership record over the last year or so and arrive at the conclusion that they are trying some Warholian philosophy in their ownership policy, but the truth is somewhat more prosaic than this.

It’s the first anniversary of the debut of “Shit Shot Mungo” this week, and the artist has asked me to remind you all that you are quite at liberty to pop over to his website and buy his crap. This week’s Mungo sees the eponymous footballer in hospital with hideous facial injuries, and that can only mean one thing – love interest!

Back at home, Chester City stumble from crisis to crisis, but a sale price of £1 is attracting interest in people seem to like those odds. Their interests, however, are likely to be at odds with those of the supporters of the club.

Mark Murphy concludes his marathon round-up of the African Cup of Nations with a round-up of the latter stages of a competition that was, sadly, upstaged by events that took place before a ball had even been kicked.

Mansfield Town of the Blue Square Premier are running a little experiment on Saturday – their supporters can turn up at Field Mill for their home match against Gateshead and pay what they like to get in. It’s now down to the people of the town to show how much they value their football club.

There comes a point when even the most obsessive of us think, “You know, maybe this is too much”, and it’s entirely plausible to believe that many of us might reach that moment with this video. Yet somehow or other, this sixteen year-old film captures a critical juncture in the changing face of modern football.

Manchester City and Manchester United may live like kings, dining out on the excess of Premier League football, but this evening our attention turns to two of Manchester’s satellite clubs, both of whom may in the past have been considered also-rans of the local scene but both of whom, this season, are having rather good seasons – Bury and Rochdale.